Looking for Emily by Fiona Longmuir

Author:Fiona Longmuir
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Nosy Crow
Published: 2022-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty-One

Lily sat in Ms Bright’s kitchen with Sam and Jay, a cup of tea cooling between her fingers, watching as the sycamore tree outside dropped its leaves like little yellow stars. As she finished her story, Ms Bright – Emily – tilted her head upwards, as though to hold the tears that had gathered in her eyes.

A million questions tumbled in Lily’s mind, stacking up, tripping over each other and getting stuck. A glance at her friends told her that they were feeling the same way. The silence stretched, filled with all the things no one knew how to say. For a while, the ticking of the clock on the wall was the only sound.

Lily lifted her cold cup to her lips, sipped, winced. “I’m so sorry, Ms Bright.”

It sounded insignificant but it was all that could be said. Ms Bright blinked her tears away and straightened her shirt.

“It was a long time ago.”

“What happened to Caitlyn?” asked Lily.

“She’s OK. We lost everything else but we got to keep each other. We even stayed Caitlyn and Emily McCrae for a while. And then we started to see this man popping up everywhere we went. Asking questions. It wasn’t safe to be us any more. We had to become different people.”

“You became Ms Bright.”

Ms Bright smiled. “Bright was Caitlyn’s idea. Our family once owned the old town lighthouse, you know. So we picked a name that let us keep some of our old selves close to our hearts. She was too frightened to come back when I did, even after nearly twenty years. I guess she was right.”

“What made you come back to Edge?” said Sam.

Ms Bright was quiet for a moment, then said simply, “This is my home.”

Lily tapped the ticket lying on the table. “So where does the museum come into it?”

Ms Bright shook her head. “I have absolutely no idea. I didn’t know anything about the museum until today.”

“Did someone send the ticket to you?”

“No. I found it under the floorboards of my old house. I never went back, you see. Thought it was too risky. But then after the reading room—” Her head jerked slightly but she pressed on. “After the reading room, I realised you had seen the things I had hidden. At first I thought I was being paranoid, but there were things in your notes that you couldn’t possibly have known. So I went back to look.”

“And?”

“And they were gone. The only thing in there was the ticket, and it was so dusty that I almost didn’t see it.”

“So the exhibits in the museum…?”

“Everything in that museum is something that I hid when we ran away. Everything except this.”

Ms Bright placed an object in the middle of the table. The “X marks the spot” note.

“The secret!” exclaimed Lily.

“It is a treasure hunt,” said Jay. “Just like your ticket said! ‘All of your treasures but one.’ Someone is laying out a treasure hunt for you.”

“A treasure hunt for what?” said Ms Bright.

Lily blinked at her. “For the diamond.

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